


five times queequeg visited ahab's coffee and tea, including the time he judiciously decided not to

by bxzukhov



Category: Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, M/M, Parody, Self-Indulgent, anti-reincarnation au, based on personal experience, but taken too seriously, ish? YMMV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 03:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20499869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bxzukhov/pseuds/bxzukhov
Summary: the author's experiences as a new, addled barista + queeshmael, maybe with some unexplained past memories of canon + ahab as a stand-in for the author's actual boss. somewhere in the middle of the crackfic-to-unironic-drama spectrum.





	five times queequeg visited ahab's coffee and tea, including the time he judiciously decided not to

the first time queequeg visited ahab’s coffee and tea, he didn’t order anything at all.

he walked up to the front, a few dollars in hand, gave the menu a once-over, and then saw the small line of little old white ladies ahead of him.

he wasn’t really in the mood for coffee anyways.

the second time queequeg visited ahab’s coffee and tea, he noticed a barista who hadn’t been there the first time.

judging by the reaction of the little old white lady in front of him, now turning away and ambling shakily to a nearby table, mug in hand, the barista was about as new to this place as queequeg is. when he made his way to the counter, the pale and pimply teenager behind it shook nearly as much as the woman who just sat down with a thud. his smile betrayed anxiety, and he reached for a pen and a blank slip of paper with the deftness of a gorilla.

queequeg swallowed his pride and ordered “a small coffee.” the barista took a step away, then one back to the counter, and, with eyes wide and panicking, asked if he wants it in an eight-ounce cup or a twelve-ounce cup.

queequeg paused, noticing the sample cups on the wall above his poor order-taker. “twelve?”

the barista hurriedly scrawled the number onto his paper before performing the same dance as before, ending up back at the counter. “you said coffee? uh...what roast?” when queequeg didn’t respond instantaneously, the barista made a weak gesture towards the dry-erase board to his left. the board was emblazoned with a crude drawing of a) a man, b) a whale, and c) a harpoon presumably travelling from a) to b), and beneath the image were three large titles: “timor-leste,” “mexico light,” and “decaf french roast.”

queequeg felt a faint, long-gone sensation of drowning before looking back at the frozen barista. “what’s the difference?”

by this point, one of the other baristas had taken pity on the struggling boy and flashed queequeg a well-worn smile. “the timor-leste is going to be a darker roast, as well as the decaf french, while the mexico light is what it says.”

queequeg has never been a big coffee drinker. he thinks he can remember some ancient family visit to a coffee farm, and the amount of work that goes into it sort of put him off supporting mass-operations like starbucks. however, he figured that such a small operation as this would probably not make too much of an impact on labor conditions in the pacific islands. he was tempted to just leave again out of convenience, but instead shrugs and says “the darker roast, then.”

more scribbling on the slip of paper, more hesitation. the older barista watched on diligently. “and will that be for here or to go?”

“to go.”

“so, it was a twelve-ounce, timor, to go?”

“yes.”

the barista scurried over to the large coffee pots, pumped the handle a couple times, struggled with the lid, and comes back a moment later with a paper cup. his hand hovered above the cash register. the other barista jumped in.

“so that’s a twelve-ounce coffee, which comes out to 1.81 on the sheet here, so then you’ll hit ‘drink’ after it, then subtotal.”

queequeg handed over two dollars. without looking at the change he gets back, he dropped it in the tip jar.

“sorry about that, i’m new.”

queequeg looked back up at the barista with the nervous smile. he tried to reflect confidence back at him. “me too,” he replied, before heading back out of ahab’s coffee and tea.

the third time queequeg visited ahab’s coffee and tea, he met who he presumed was the titular ahab, and wished that he hadn’t.

something about the little interaction he had with that slightly greasy barista kept him thinking about this place about once a day for a week, at which point he decided to go back and see if the barista was working again.

also, the timor-leste was lacking, and he wanted to try a more involved drink.

again, there was no line ahead of him when he enters. he saw the barista— but his back was turned towards the side counter, and a grizzled man in his early fifties was standing in front of him, a few french presses with about a dozen sample cups stretched out between the two.

the barista made a move towards the counter, but the older man pedantically said that they’re in the middle of a coffee tasting right now. he looked like he hadn’t showered in a few days.

before another barista can take his order, queequeg left.

the fourth time queequeg visited ahab’s coffee and tea, he learned his barista’s name, and much, much more.

queequeg went up to the counter, determined to order the most complicated drink he could think of, determined to order it from his inexplicably favorite barista. his heart leapt when he saw the boy with pen and paper at the ready. why did it do that?

“i’ll have a twenty-ounce iced mocha with half a shot of hazelnut and half a shot of vanilla with whipped cream, please.”

the barista managed to write all of that without needing repetition. he was already getting more confident as every shift ticked by. before he could ask, queequeg jumped in with “for here.”

not long after, the drink appeared. the whipped cream was pathetically sagging to one side, but queequeg smiled so warmly the barista nearly forgot to ring him up. noticing his expression, queequeg took the leap into the abyss: “when does your shift end?”

“in…” the barista leaned over the counter to crane his neck towards the wall on the right. “three minutes, actually! ...why?”

queequeg busied himself with opening up his straw wrapper while carefully formulating his sentence. “i think i’d like to get to know you better, and i’m not sure why.”

“oh. oh,” the barista nearly laughed out. “yes, i think i’d like to get to know you better as well! just give me, well, about two minutes, okay?”

queequeg watched the barista tousle his hair just enough to mitigate the effects of hat hair with a self-contented grin. the latter noticed as he sat down.

“call me ishmael, by the way.” the electricity was palpable, but neither knew why, yet. there was a sense of an old song being sung, with bassy tones and vaguely-felt significance, coming from somewhere nearby, but the cafe notably had no ambient soundtrack to speak of, besides the dishwasher. there was no reason for this exchange to be happening, let alone for it to feel so necessary.

“i’m queequeg. so, you don’t think this is weird?” he took a sip of his mocha. “by the way, you did not mix the chocolate powder in well at all. this is gross.”

ishmael rolled his eyes. “i haven’t even worked here for a month yet. that actually works as an answer to both of your questions, now that i think about it. maybe regulars want to get to know new baristas all the time?”

“no, i doubt that. i’m also not a regular, you just think i am because of the whole being-new thing.”

“right.” ishmael suddenly grabbed the mocha and took a drink. “yep, that’s not good.”

queequeg giggled. “you have whipped cream on your lip.”

“so do you, i just didn’t feel like embarrassing a stranger.” the two mechanically wiped their mouths, but couldn’t stop the laughter from bubbling out. “so you definitely think this is weird. why are you doing it, then?”

“to tell you the truth, i can’t stop thinking about you. i’ve never seen you before, but i must have. i don’t know. what school do you go to?”

“i’m homeschooled. was. i graduated in june. my parents ordered a cap and gown and everything. you?”

queequeg took another terrible drink of the chunky mocha. “i graduated like a normal person, but not from anywhere around here. i’m kind of surprised we’re the same age; i definitely pegged you as being a year younger.”

ishmael wiped a bead of lingering work-sweat from his brow. “wow, it means a lot. but to be honest, i thought you were older than me too, so no hard feelings.”

“hey, before we get to know each other too well, i need to know: do you hear, like, a sea shanty too?”

“oh, yeah, that’s the boss. i can’t tell if he’s the one singing or if he’s playing it off his laptop or something, but i’m honestly too afraid of ahab to go back there and check.” ishmael licked all of the slowly-deflating whipped cream from his own magnum opus of a drink before leaning back in his chair. “i’ve thought a lot about you, too, you know.”

the fifth time queequeg visited ahab’s coffee and tea, he didn’t.

“hey, ishmael, wanna go in?”

queequeg slowed the car down a humiliating amount. ishmael averted his eyes from the peeling exterior. for a moment, he thought he could see the familiar limp of an aging man, and shuddered. “no, please, just keep driving, honey.”

“nothing to be embarrassed of,” queequeg drawled. “it’s a good way to meet, you know? pass me the vape. we’ll be back in nantucket before you know it.”

**Author's Note:**

> yes, i did serve someone an iced mocha with visible chunks of powder, and yes, the "coffee tasting" incident is based directly on real life. if you know the coffeeshop i'm vagueing, you either know me in real life or somehow live in my city and we need to meet up.


End file.
